Linux Newbie needs direction

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RobertGonzalez
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Linux Newbie needs direction

Post by RobertGonzalez »

OK, so I am thinking of rebuilding my laptop that just totally died on me. I plan on replacing the hard drive and instead of loading windows, loading Linux. I have never even seen a machine with Linux on it. Now to the meat of my question...

WHAT THE HECK VERSION DO I INSTALL? Dude, I have searched high and low and have seen Mandrake, Manrivia, SuSE, RedHat/Fedora Core 4, Gentoo, Ubutu, Kubutu, Linspire(Lindows?), KDE, AAAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH! I looked on these forums and it appears that for every different version of Linux there is a forum member that chooses it. Google tells me that there are like 18,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 results when I search for Linux. What do I do?

What I really want is a version that will allow me to use my machine as a development environment (localhost web server, mysql/postgresql server, etc) AND allow me to test/use Linux platform open source software. Seeing that I am a total thumbs fool Linux newbie I am turning my travails over to this community and your insight.

Help me DevNet Community. You're my only hope...
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hawleyjr
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Post by hawleyjr »

In my experience, installing Red Hat is the easiest. Everything else is just sizzle that sells the steak.
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hawleyjr
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Post by hawleyjr »

On another note, you may want to do a dual boot so you can have boot Win and Linux on the same PC
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RobertGonzalez
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Post by RobertGonzalez »

Is a dual system something that I'd want? I have another new latptop that is running XP Pro SP2. This thing is sweet and I am using this machine for .NET and PHP development.

I just really want to see how the LAMP environment works compared to a Windows environment. I am also starting to really not like Micro$oft so it seems that OSS is the way to go.
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hawleyjr
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Post by hawleyjr »

lol, you don't like Microsoft? wow...lol :)

The dual boot was just an idea. go for the full system!
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Post by Roja »

My advice: Fedora Core 4. No cost, slick install, the simplicity of Redhat, without the cost.

Its the current version of the community developed distribution that Redhat builds its distributions from.

Don't worry about dual-booting just yet. Dual-booting will encourage you to flip back to Windows when you can't figure something out. Its like immersion learning in languages - if you dont have an easy out, your brain will more readily embrace the change.

As to Windows v. Linux, I won't say much. I will however say that most web professionals I know learn quickly why LAMP is so popular. I suspect you will as well.
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RobertGonzalez
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Post by RobertGonzalez »

I have heard more opinions for Fedora Core 4 then any other. As I was searching earlier today I ran across their download page and saw two different i386 download versions: 1) FC4-i386-SRPMS-discX.iso, and 2) FC4-i386-discX.iso. Of these, which one should I shoot for? I have no idea what the difference between them is and there is no explanation of it on their web site.

Also, do you think there is value in paying $6.00 for a set of CD's that someone has already downloaded so I don't have to wait eight hours downloading 2.4GB worth of boot files?
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Post by hawleyjr »

I've found that the download can be a hastle. however, you do the the most up-to-date version. For the $10-$30 buy the CD.
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Post by Roja »

Everah wrote:Of these, which one should I shoot for? I have no idea what the difference between them is and there is no explanation of it on their web site.
SRPM means "Source RPM", or put another way, the source code for the packages that build the OS. You don't need that.

Normally, I'd steer you to Linuxiso, but for some bizarre reason, they havent updated to Core 4 yet on their Fedora page: http://www.linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=64
Everah wrote:Also, do you think there is value in paying $6.00 for a set of CD's that someone has already downloaded so I don't have to wait eight hours downloading 2.4GB worth of boot files?
Oh absolutely. Totally worth it.
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